PRESS KIT MARCH 30 - MAY 1 | RITZ THEATER 345 13Th Avenue NE, Minneapolis Table of Contents
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PRESS KIT MARCH 30 - MAY 1 | RITZ THEATER 345 13th Avenue NE, Minneapolis Table of contents 2 Features 3 MinnPost 4 MPR News 5 Broadway World 8 Reviews 9 How Was The Show.com 11 Pioneer Press 13 Cherry and Spoon 16 Star Tribune 18 Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine 20 Talkin’ Broadway 23 Rift Magazine 25 Social Samples 31 Pull Quotes 21 Social Media Samples 27 Pull Quotes 1 Features 2 Headline: The Picks Date: April 4, 2016 Media Outlet: MinnPost Media Contact: Pamela Espeland Link: https://www.minnpost.com/artscape/2016/03/workhaus-collective-calling-it-quits-get-ready-17- days-movie-madness Opens Saturday at the Ritz: Theater Latté Da’s C. Kristina Gorder of Theoroi, a young professionals group sponsored by the Schubert Club (and now in its fifth year), wrote this preview for MinnPost: “The new musical C. is based on the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, a fictionalized account of the life of a 17th-century novelist and playwright. In the play, Cyrano is a cadet in the French army as well as a brilliantly talented poet and musician. Sadly, he is riddled with self-doubt as a result of his abnormally large nose, which he believes makes him unworthy of love. (Even if your nose is a perfectly reasonable size, we are all occasionally felled by our insecurities.) C. is the second world premiere in Theater Latté Da's new work initiative, NEXT 20/20, a plan to develop 20 new musicals or plays with music within five years. One of the things I love most about the Twin Cities arts community is how it not only embraces but also supports and makes space for new works. I recently heard a new work by local composer Abbie Bettinis in the Ordway Concert Hall and have seen five operas brought to life by Minnesota Opera. I can’t wait to see what Theater Latté Da will bring to the musical theater scene!” Book and lyrics by Bradley Greenwald, music by Robert Elhai; directed by Peter Rothstein. 7:30 p.m. Through April 24 with performances Wednesdays-Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. 345 13th Ave. NE. FMI and tickets ($45/$35) 3 Headline: A new spin on ‘Cyrano,’ and four other arts events not to miss this weekend Date: April 14, 2016 Media Outlet: MPR News Media Contact: MPR News Staff Link: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/04/14/five-weekend-arts-events-not-to-miss Kendall Anne Thompson, Bradley Greenwald and David Darrow in Theater Latté Da's presentation of "C." at the Ritz Theater. Dan Norman | Theater Latté Da Bradley Greenwald's nose for musical theater Maybe you've seen Cyrano de Bergerac before, or one of the many adaptations of the story about the swashbuckling poet and his enormous nose. But if you haven't seen C., which is midway through its premiere run at Theater Latté Da, you're missing the proboscis with the most-est. Cyrano has a beautiful soul but a face he believes to be ugly. He is skilled at wordplay and swordplay and always ready to use them both, such as when he is taunted about the size of his schnoz. He's been in love with Roxane since childhood, but he dares not hope she can see past his nose. Instead, he agrees to help pretty-boy Christian pursue her. This musical reinvention is remarkable. Bradley Greenwald, who wrote the book and the lyrics to Robert Elhai's music, performs the title role with sensitivity and skill, not to mention a voice that could knock birds out of their trees. He fuses music and story without visible effort. "We are on this earth," Greenwald's Cyrano says, "to articulate the ineffable." And boy, does he ever. Toward the end of the first act, when Roxane has stiff-armed the earnest but inarticulate Christian, Cyrano progresses from stage whispers to spoken dialogue to song — soaring, achingly expressive song. As Cyrano improvises the text that will win Roxane's heart for Christian, we see the personification of selfless love — coupled with the crippling effects of a lousy self-image. "My life is complete," he says at the foot of Roxane's balcony, though his life is, at best, half complete. It's heartbreaking. Go ahead and cry. Be thankful that, with your normal-sized nose, you won't need a handkerchief the size of a bedsheet. At the Ritz Theater in northeast Minneapolis, with a run that's just been extended through May 1. Reason to go: Bradley Greenwald. 4 Headline: BWW Interview: 6 Questions & a Plug with C.’s Bradley Greenwald Date: April 15, 2016 Media Outlet: Broadway World Minneapolis Media Contact: Kristen Hirsch Montag Link: http://www.broadwayworld.com/minneapolis/article/BWW-Interview-6-Questions-a-Plug-with-Cs- Bradley-Greenwald-20160415# Kendall Anne Thompson, Bradley Greenwald and David Darrow in Theater Latté Da's presentation of "C." at the Ritz Theater. Dan Norman | Theater Latté Da Bradley Greenwald is a fixture of Twin Cities stages; a performer that regularly draws deserved praise for his performances in opera, theater, music- theater, concert and recital repertoire with the Jungle Theater, Theatre de la Jeune Lune, the Children's Theatre Company, 10,000 Things, Nautilus Music-Theater, Minnesota Dance Theatre, James Sewell Ballet, VocalEssence, Frank Theatre, the Illusion Theater, the Guthrie Theater, A Prairie Home Companion and Skylark Opera. (Whew!) Greenwald also is the recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in music, the McKnight Fellowship for Theater Artists, and a 2006 Ivey Award. Greenwald is not known well as a playwright but that's about to change. Previously, he adapted Madeleine L'Engle's novel A Wrinkle in Time into a libretto for Libby Larsen's opera. Now, writing the book and lyrics for C. at Theater Latté Da, and receiving rave reviews for the production, he may just have a dual career on his hands. Latté Da just extended the run by a week due to popular demand. The show is original and thoroughly enjoyable, and Greenwald's Cyrano is amazing. Get your tickets now (seriously, don't wait to do it), then come back and read this edition of 6 Questions and a Plug to learn more about the play and the playwright. C. is a brand new musical adaptation of Edmond Rostand's classic play, Cyrano de Bergerac, so the story is probably quite familiar to most BroadwayWorld.com readers, but can you tell us a little about the premise and how similar or different your adaptation is to the original? The adaptation follows the love triangle of Rostand's play, as well as its basic structure-- Cyrano-who- loves-Roxane-who-loves-Christian-who-needs-Cyrano-to-prove-his-love-to-Roxane-- and includes, of course, his brilliant Balcony Scene. What struck me in Rostand's play was Cyrano's love of language and music and how vital both are to his spiritual and physical existence, as important as food, water and 5 shelter. So I chose poetry and music as the fuel for the plot, over any stylized 17th-century settings or plot machinations. What bowled me over in the Rostand play, reading my direct word-for-word translation instead of the glittering, giddy, sublimely poetic variations of Burgess and Hooker, was the profound love and humanity in these characters. The content of translated adaptations, by nature, must go off on whimsical tangents to satisfy meter and rhyme. I decided I would not write in verse, except when the characters needed to speak in verse. I wanted Rostand's themes of love and language and the ineffable to speak without any camouflaging veneer of a translator's own poetic athleticism. What was the inspiration or driver for you to adapt the play as a new musical, and is the music all original? I took on Cyrano as an exercise after writing the libretto for Libby Larsen's opera A Wrinkle in Time. I loved adapting the novel, and wanted to do more. When I asked Peter Rothstein for a subject he suggested Cyrano, because he didn't feel any of the music adaptations of the play had enjoyed any success. When I talked through my take on how I saw music intertwined with the story, he encouraged me to continue. After a year, the exercise turned into a full script for the first season of Theater Latté Da's NEXT in 2013. And yes, all of Robert Elhai's score is original even though some of it may sound like folk songs that have been around forever. That's how brilliant he is. What is your background in playwriting and writing lyrics for musicals? Did you train in these disciplines as well as acting and singing? I have no official training in playwriting other than my own experiences with those who have. New work has always been a huge part of my career, so I have watched playwrights and composers struggle and succeed and revise and collaborate, learning from them by singing or speaking what they create, and taking note of when they choose one word over another and why. I wrote a libretto with Steven Epp for Jeune Lune's The Magic Flute, but it was after adapting A Wrinkle In Time for Libby Larsen's opera that I realized I loved writing, and that perhaps my life in different theatrical disciplines might be useful in the realization of a story through music. You are also starring as Cyrano in the show; has it been challenging to play both roles (of playwright and lead actor)? I was wary of playing Cyrano while also serving as writer.